The four had not been heard from since a videotape aired by Al-Jazeera television on Jan. 28, dated from a week before. A statement purportedly accompanying that tape said they would be killed unless all Iraqi prisoners were released from Iraqi and U.S. prisons. No deadline was set.
The hostages seen in the new Al-Jazeera video dated Feb. 28 were Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32; and Briton Norman Kember, 74.
Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va., was not in the 25-second tape, said Maxine Nash, a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Baghdad.
“We do not know what to make of Tom Fox’s absence from this video,” Christian Peacemaker Teams said in a statement issued at its Chicago headquarters.
The four workers disappeared Nov. 26. The previously unknown Swords of Righteous Bridges claimed responsibility for kidnapping them.
Britain’s Foreign Office called for the immediate release of the hostages.
“To release a video of this kind is obviously extremely distressing for the relatives and our thoughts are with them as well as with the victims, who have been held now for more than 100 days,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.
“They are peace campaigners dedicated to helping other people and should be freed immediately to spare both them and their families further distress,” it said.
Workers ignored
safety warnings
Tuesday’s tape showed the three men sitting in chairs and speaking,
although there was no audio. One had white hair and a slight beard; the two
others had dark hair and full beards. The tape said the men asked their governments
and Persian Gulf countries to work for their release.
The activists had been warned repeatedly by Iraqi and Western security officials before being abducted that they were taking a grave risk by moving around Baghdad without bodyguards.
Christian Peacemaker Teams have been working in Iraq since October 2002, investigating allegations of abuse against Iraqi detainees by American and Iraqi forces. Its teams host human rights conferences in conflict zones, promoting peaceful solutions.
Muslim scholars and activists from around the world have appealed for the release of the aid workers.
Jill Carroll
still held
Also still held hostage is American reporter Jill Carroll, who the Iraqi
interior minister has said was being held by the Islamic Army in Iraq, the
insurgent group that freed two French journalists in 2004 after four months
in captivity.
Bayan Jabr, who is in charge of Iraq’s police, also said he believed the 28-year-old freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor was still alive, although the deadline set by her captors for the U.S. to meet their demands expired late last month.
Three videotapes provided by the kidnappers to Arab satellite television stations identified the group holding her as the previously unknown “Revenge Brigades.” She was seized Jan. 7 in Baghdad and her translator was killed.
More than 250 foreigners have been taken hostage in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and at least 39 have been killed.